Transitioning Out of the Military: Are You Ever READY?

Some are ready to have a break from the op tempo. They are ready to leave deployments, TAD/TDY trips, long field exercises, and frequent moves in the rear view mirror. They are eager for their lives to be their own again. Perhaps they are excited about moving back to their hometown.

Others are not ready to enter the civilian world again.

They miss the adventure of moving to new places, having a secure paycheck, and the camaraderie of the military community. The thought of having to figure out what they want to do in their “second life” can be daunting.

Then there are those who feel all of the above.

They may flip-flop between being ready to leave one day to experiencing anxiety about it the next. To throw another twist into the situation, the servicemember may feel one way about it while the spouse feels another.

In short, transitioning out of the military is a big life change and one that can be full of a variety of emotions for all members of the family.

My husband was ready to retire.

He had his eyes set on the horizon and was ready to leave his military career behind. He was finishing up his MBA degree in preparation for employment in the civilian world and was eagerly networking for a job.

Me? I was not ready to go. I loved our military life.

Serving military families is my passion. The majority of my employment and volunteer activities have revolved around the military, to include working and volunteering for the National Military Family Association. My husband’s new job moved us away from a large military community to an area where most people cannot even relate to us.

To be honest, I have been “home sick” for our military community and feeling very displaced. And my husband, who was originally ready to leave, misses being in the Marines.

Emotionally, our transition out of the military has been harder than we expected. It may sound odd, but we are almost having a bit of an identity crisis.

Financially, we thought we were prepared.

We had figured out how much my husband needed to earn to replace his base pay and BAH while allowing me to remain a full-time mom to our children. When he was offered a job, my husband spent hours reworking our family budget with his new income, the rent and utilities for the house in our new location, gasoline for the mileage he’d have for his new commute, our expected taxes and so forth.

After we moved, two things caught us off guard:

The first was something we should have predicted but didn’t… our grocery expenses increased because we no longer had access to a commissary.

The second was something we had taken for granted until we moved to a non-military area… the savings we had received from military discounts came to an end. For example, while living in a military community, we had been getting discounts from civilian businesses out in town for our son’s toddler gym classes and our children’s haircuts. The same companies that provided those services are located in our new non-military area, but they are owned by different franchisees who do not offer military discounts. It did not even occur to us that we would lose those savings after we moved.

Is your military family transitioning to civilian life in the next 2 years or have you transitioned in the past 24 months? What did you wish you would have known? The National Military Family Association has launched a Transition Survey and wants to hear from YOU!

We know service members have transition support, but spouses do not. We are creating a military Spouse Companion to the Transition GPS program. Help us help military spouses like YOU! Hurry the survey closes on June 4. Oh, and by the way – for taking the survey you’ll be entered into a drawing to win one of three gifts cards! Don’t delay – take the Transition Survey today!

Posted by Mary Benbow Cisowski, National Military Family Association Volunteer, USMC Spouse, Mom